SmBoatDrinks

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Won a WSOP Prize package last week! It came down to the final table in the 10th & last event of the season in our Northern Cincinnati Poker Club.

This is our 5th season. I won a seat our 1st season, then had to move out of town for work, so split a seat during seasons 2 and 3. Came in 4th last year, but only the top 3 win WSOP prize packages ($1500 tourney entry +$700 for expenses).

Played pretty solid all season long. I was in 1st place through 7 events. I had a family conflict for event 8 & my sub only finished in 14th place, so I dropped to 3rd place. Managed to finish 7th in event 9, and held a 1 point lead for 3rd place coming into the final event.

There were 3 players immediately behind me in the standings, who had a legitimate shot to pass me for one of the prize packages. One went out relatively early, and another on the final table bubble. I played pretty solid, but not too tight. My biggest hand of the night was when I flopped trip 6's and my 10 kicker actually played to cripple a 62.

My last threat was short stacked coming to the final table, but managed to double up during a coin flip hand when a K hit the river. Things got a little tense, but he ended up going out 9th & my seat was clinched. I ended up 5th & winning $80.

I'm looking at going out the last week in June, & playing in WSOP events #48 (PLO8) and #51 (NL Monster Stack). Also going to play in the Binions PLO8 event.

After spending ~ a week in Vegas for several straight years, I hadn't been able to make it out the last couple. Thus I am super-pumped to get back out there next month. Airline & hotel prices are significantly higher than the last time I was in Vegas, but I'm booked & ready to go!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Headed to Hollywood Columbus today for the 3rd time. They have a nice Sunday morning PLO Tourney. Won't make it there in time for that today, but will take a shot at the Bad Bead Jackpot ($>$264,000) playing some Hold'em. If I get bored I'll play some 1-2 PLO.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Sorry for the lack of updates, but Black Friday took most of the wind out of my online poker sails. I miss the various blogger series we had with the excellent competition & prizes. Tried playing in the Play Dank a few Wednesdays, but it’s just not the same.

I now only play a couple times a month, but have managed to successfully cash out checks from both Cake and Bovada since my last post.

Shortly after going to Foxwoods last summer I started playing in a Friday night home game. I only knew 1 player going in, but he happened to be the host, so that helped. During the 1st time I played I learned that another player had played in the same tourney I had at Foxwoods just a week earlier.

The gist of the game is as follows:

We start at 7:00 PM and stop with one last orbit at 1:00 AM.

$1/$2 NL Hold’em. We have played PLO & PLO8 on occasion, but only if all the players are agreeable to it.

Most players buy in for $200 to start, but some buy in for $100.

We have a full-time dealer who works for tips.

$2/pot is raked to cover food & drinks. Large sub provided every week, along with whatever you want to drink (water, soft drinks, beer).

At the end of September we agreed to rake $1/pot for a WSOP prize. At the end of April we will have a tourney with the top 10 players in attendance. The winner of this tourney wins the WSOP prize package, which includes entry to WSOP Event #46, $2500 NL Hold’em, along with some spending money for airfare, hotel, etc. I am currently 5th in attendance, and should qualify for the tourney.

Straddling (Traditional) is allowed.

If you win a hand with 2-7, and the hand at least goes to the flop, everyone else has to pay you $5/ea.

Lately I have been buying in for $100, holding more back in reserve, & if necessary re-buying for $200 later when there is more money on the table to be won.

Last week was a roller-coaster session. I bought in for $100 & lost it relatively early 3-barreling with 2-7, getting called down all the way w/top pair – medium kicker.

I put my second $100 to good use, & ran it up to $800 by flopping not 1, not 2, but 3 sets & getting it in against 2 pr & straight and flush draws. I’m not flopping another set til at least April.

Things started to go down-hill when I lost a flush-over-flush battle. Then I put another player all in when I had 9-9 on a 7-8-10 board. Bad news is he had 9-10 & I didn’t catch up. My last bad hand was 4s7s. Flopped a pair, and then turned a flush draw with a straight draw. Called a big bet on the turn to miss the river.

Ended up @ $203 for a net win of $3, which I gave to the dealer to help round off the payouts. So the session was a wash, but felt like a loss because of where I had been.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The rest of the family was out of town this weekend, so I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to make the journey down to Foxwoods for the 1st time for some poker. If you're planning on going, I highly recommend reading the FAQ's on the 2+2 thread.

I saw they had a nightly deepstack tourney at 6:00 PM, so I wanted to make sure I got down there in plenty of time to register for that. Door to door it's 250 miles, so I left a little before noon. The drive down was relatively uneventful, as I listened to some podcasts on my iphone to get me fired up from Tao of Pokerati and ESPN: The Poker Edge. I did miss one exit in Hartford, and got to see more of downtown than I was planning on. You also go thru the middle of Norwich, which could be a little tricky without a GPS.

I arrived ~ 3:30 PM and parked in the Rainmaker garage on the 3rd level, as they did have a nice lighted system telling me the 1st 2 levels were full. It was a short walk into the casino & I took the escalator down to the poker room. The WPT Poker Room is the largest on the East Coast, and it does have a lot of tables with 104 (I'd say they were 80% in use), but it doesn't have a huge feel to the room as the ceiling is lower in most places, and it's more L or T shaped, and closed in, as opposed to one big open room.

I got my WPT Dream Card. Pro Tip: Get your dream card in the poker room if you want the nice WPT logo. There is a desk just to the left of the cashiers cage. This is now my second favorite casino players card, behind the WSOP Total Rewards Card.

I put my name on the list for 1-2 PLO8 and 1-2 NL, which got called 1st. Sat down in the 10 seat, banging my knee on the toke box, and bought in for $100. Lost a couple pots w/99 & suited connectors when they called me for the 1-2 PLO8 game. Went ahead & registered for the 6 PM tourney early during a dealer/till change. Didn't really get much going in the PLO8 game & headed back up upstairs @ 6:00PM for the NL "DeepStack" tourney.

I was glad I registered early for the tourney, as the line was 50+ deep when we got started ~ 6:05 PM. We ended up w/336 runners for the $120 buy-in. We started w/15,000 chips, and blinds 25-50, but the levels were only 20 minutes. My 1st table was definitely a mix of players. Had one tough laydown w/TPTK when a guy check raised me on the flop & made a big bet on the turn for most of my chips. He had shown he was capable of having less than me, but I decided to wait for a better spot. Hovered right around starting stack for 1st 8 levels until our table broke.

By the time I got to my second table it was generally much better, but had become more of a push fest. 35 were getting paid & when we got down to ~ 60 I was short stacked & got the 1st of my 1st 2 double ups. The second was close to a triple up, when I got it AIPF with AdTd vs 2 others and hit my flush on the river putting me up towards 100k in chips.

We were down under 40 players & nearing the bubble when I got KK in the small blind. Blinds were 8000/16000 with 1000 ante. UTG limped. It got folded around to me where I went all in for ~ 50k. BB folded & UTG called me w/AdJd. flop was safe, but turn was A, and no K on river was the end for me on the bubble with a nasty beat. C'est la vie. Obviously I was playing to win & not just folding to the money. 35th would have paid $230 & 1st was over $7,000. Even though the 20 min blind levels don't make it a true deep stack tourney, I was still happy I entered & feel like I got my $ worth for 6 hours of play. Saw AA get cracked at least twice all in pre-flop by AK (4flush) and QT (boat).

Wasn't ready to leave yet, so I got my name on the 1-2 PLO list, and 1-2 PLO8 interest list. Walked to the Dunkin Donuts just a few steps from the casino in the complex & got a flatbread ham, cheese, & bacon sandwich. My dream card earnings from just playing that day paid for all but $0.90 worth. Scarfed it down while waiting for my initials to be called (they do initials at Foxwoods, not names).

Got called to the 1-2 PLO game & decided to do the short stack approach & try to run it up. Bought in for $60 & lost that when my KQQJ got rivered. Rebought for $100 & hit a big 3-way all in on the flop when my open ended straight draw hit on the turn & then my backdoor flush hit on the river. Won a few other decent pots & was able to run it up close to $600. Ended up cashing out $516. So after 12+ hours of fun poker at Foxwoods I ended up $235.

Made the drive home OK this morning as the sun came up, with one stop for gas, diet Mt. Dew, and food.

Overall I enjoyed my trip to Foxwoods and would definitely go back. I wish the deep stack tourney had longer levels, but I did like that the 1-2 PLO games were really 1-2, as opposed to the $5 bring in at the Rio during the WSOP.

Monday, July 04, 2011

Let's just say I got my Vegas poker fix for the year. 1 min cash in a Golden Nugget Grand event, and 1 winning cash session does not make for a winning week. I felt much more comfortable in my 2nd WSOP event this year, than I did in my 1st event last year. And, if not for a brutal river beat I would have had a decent shot at getting to day 2 with some chips.

During my Binions PLO8 event, at our starting table I sat to the left of Alex Rousso. He was a nice enough fellow, and wrote much better about the Binions event than I could ever think of doing. We got embroiled in a bit of a controversy, which Alex also wrote about, in one of the 1st few hands. Alex was in seat 1, and I was in seat 2. Seat 4 and Seat 5 were involved in a hand that went to the river. Seat 4, a nice guy with a Red Sox card protector, bet the river. Seat 5 called, and seat 4 insta-mucked his hand, which was a bit suprising, especially in a hi-lo game.

Now is where the controversy starts. Seat 5 did not turn his cards over & pushed them towards the muck, as the dealer began to push the pot his way. Alex asked to see the cards, and where I come from you are required to show your cards, and the winning hand at showdown in order to win a pot on the river, so I supported Alex's request. The dealer said the player in seat 5 was not required to show his cards to win the pot. Then things turned a bit ugly between the player in Seat 5 and Alex, as Seat 5 asked why he wanted to see the cards. Alex honestly said for information, as that is a big part of the game, especially early in a tourney like this. Seat 5 said, "well that's a shitty thing to do". They went back and forth a bit, and I asked the dealer to call the floor over so we could get clarification on this.

The table wanted to keep playing, so I said fine, and ended up getting embroiled in a huge pot with the jackhole in Seat 5 where I called his pre-flop raise and ended up turning a boat for a scoop. My blood was pumping faster that hand than it has in a long time at the poker table as I explained the situation to the floor while I was trying to extract massive chips from the jackhole.

The floor ended up basically siding with the dealer, but he did add the caveat that if I thought that there was collusion involved then I had the right to stop the hand, call the floor over, and they would then show the table his hand. Well, now I could see where that could be considered "Shitty". So, basically the jackhole knew the local rule better than a few of the rest of us did, but I don't like that ruling & prefer the "Show me a winner" rule when it comes to a showdown on the river. What do you think?

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Some people have expressed an interest in buying a piece of my action for the whole week, and not just 1 event. If you just want a piece of the WSOP event, that offer is still good, but as another option you can buy a weekly share and get a piece of me in the following events:

Mon 6/27 Binions Classic NL $160

Tue 6/28 Binions Classic PLO8 $210

Thur 6/30 WSOP Event #51 PLO8 $1500

Fri 7/1 Ceasars PLO8 $130

Similar terms as for WSOP:

Selling up to 50%

All Payments must be made in person or via PayPal prior to Saturday June 25th.

1.1 markup (10% = 10 Shares = $220, 1% = 1 Share = $22)

I will provide updates via Twitter @SmBoatDrinks

For every share purchased, the purchaser will be entitled 1% of my gross winnings (pre-tax/pre-tokes)

In the event that I’m unable to play in an event, purchasers will receive a full refund for that % of the share price, to be paid by the method of my choosing.

Payment on shares by me (if any) will be made via PayPal or in-person cash payment as agreed by the purchaser and myself. Taxes on any payment on shares are the purchasers responsibility. The purchaser must agree to provide taxpayer identification numbers and other relevant personal information at my request so that I may comply with tax regulations regarding any gross winnings/payment on shares. If the purchaser does not provide requested information, payment on shares will be delayed until I’ve received the needed information.

I reserve the right to make any deals regarding the allocation of the tournament prize pool. If a deal is made, I will advise you via email as to how the deal affected the published payouts. Payment on shares will be based upon the actual payouts, not any published payouts, regardless of the source.

Please let me know if you are interested via comment or email at SmBoatDrinks(at)gmail(dot)com.

Monday, May 30, 2011

The 2011 World Series of Poker begins tomorrow. Good luck to everyone playing before I get there on June 26th. I'm going to play in at least one event, and hopefully two, depending on how many shares I sell.

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Well it will certainly be a birthday I will always remember! Black Friday April 15th when the Department of Injustice shut down Full Tilt and PokerStars. Still kind of surreal nearly 3 weeks later. So I can watch hard core porn with a horse, but I can't play poker with my friends and relatives, makes sense to me!

I've always been partial to Full Tilt, but I've got to give PokerStars credit. I put in for my cashout on 4/26, and it hit my bank account yesterday 5/2. Still waiting on the cashout option from FTP, where I've got over 10x the amount I has on PS.

Play money just doesn't cut it for me, unless I'm helping my sons learn the game. I had put $100 on Bodog before the NCAA tourney. It's very easy, as all you need is a Visa card! My sports betting was down to about $30 before UConn carried me back into triple figures. Poker is much easier than sports betting, and one of the things I like about Bodog is that you can use the same bankroll for both. I don't like Bodog's interface as well as FTP's, and the alert "beeps" to let you know it's your turn are annoying as all get out. No rakeback on Bodog these days, but they are friendly to new players with plenty of freerolls into their big Sunday tourney. Been having decent luck @ Sit & Go's while also playing PLO8 cash games.

Got my trip booked for Vegas and the WSOP last week of June. Got comped 4 nights @ the Rio, and the other 2 are reasonably priced. Gonna be railing my brother Sumo44 in his 1st WSOP event. I'm gonna play the Binions PLO8 on that Tue & hopefully parlay it into an enty in the WSOP event on Thur. Post a comment if you're gonna be there then & want to meet up.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Since we can't play on FTP or PS right now, I played on Bodog for the 1st time last night & cashed in the only tourney I played.

May as well continue w/the Donkey Island Recap. After 3 events we were down to 13 players, and 6 on team fish.

Here was the 1st email from Hoy to me, xkm, and VJ:

Hey Guys.

I may not be available until sometime pretty late on Wednesday, so I just thought I would check in about Wednesday night's Dank tournament in Survivor Poker. It seems obvious that we should vote out Dawn Summers if we are once again forced to submit ourselves to an elimination vote, as Dawn has yet to show up for a single event of the series. Although surely this is how the game is played, both Numb and Al have acted like total babies upon being voted out so far, so I don't want anyone to feel coerced with respect to who we decide to vote for as a group. If anyone wants to take out someone other than Dawn, just email back and let me know. As long as we will vote as a group, I am down for voting for anyone, but Dawn does seem like the natural answer to me given her lack of participation so far in the tournament series.

In any event, I am really hoping Team Fish can make a better showing Wednesday night in the Dank. Each of us has won blogger tournaments before, so I know we all know how to get this done. Let's all make a commitment to playing a little tighter than we have been early and try to stick around at least until the stacks get a little larger. Other than that first Goat tournament, I have been a non-factor in the last few events, and I definitely plan to change that on Wednesday. Hopefully we can get a few of us to the final table and make things interesting after really getting lambasted by those Donkeys the past couple of weeks.

Best of luck on Wednesday! Long live Team Fish! Just three more elimination votes during Team Play -- we can survive if we all stay together till then, and especially if we can squeak out a win or two in these last three Survivor Poker tournaments.

Hoy

So we had our plan..... or so we thought! Dawn ended up winning the immunity bounty by knocking out Wolfshead. Xkm is the 1st to send an email asking the obvious question:

Dawn gets immunity... now what?

Hoy is the next to reply:

its gotta be iaatg, right? hes the only one left outside of our alliance, which really seems to be working. are we agreed?

Turtle (iaatg) was one of the contestants I was in contact w/via AIM. When he asked me what the plan was I told him Hoy wanted to vote him out but I didn't want to do it. Xkm and Turtle were tight, so I got this email from Xkm:

Dude, Turtle says you're talking about wacking Hoy... are you just playing Turtle, or really thinking about Hoy?

At this point the tourney was still going on & we were trying to win it so we didn't have to vote anybody off. Hoy & VJ went out 1st & logged off/went to be assuming we were sticking with our original plan B of voting turtle. I replied to xkm:

No, I'm considering it if I could get a couple more votes for him. I'm not happy that he slammed us in his post.

Now, this is where a little explanation is needed. Hoy had done the "best" job of posting on his blog during the Donkey Island contest. What rubbed me & some of my other fish teammates the wrong way was that Hoy basically said all the good players, besides him, were over on team donkey. I mean wtf? Even if that's your opinion, why would you put that on your blog for all to see & possibly piss off your own teammates? So here was Xkm's response to me:

I'm down with it. He's gotta go at some point; I was hoping we'd run a little better during team play and wack him at the merge, but I'm fine with sending him home tonight if we lose. Should we consider that a plan?

So I sent a quick email to Dawn:

Congrats on the Immunity!

Can we get you to vote for Hoy tonight if we don't win?

A few of us are not happy that he slammed us in his post.

Thanks,

Boat

She responded right away:

Lol hell fucking yeah. I have a standing vote for hoy in with buddy dank!

So, not sure what the history is between those 2, but we had the votes we needed to take Hoy out if need be. I tried to IM VJ to let her know the change in plans, but she was off for the night & didn't get my message til the next day. The bombshell was dropped at the end of the tourney & when Buddy sent out his email:

Team Fish loses another one. Not sure if it helped to have a bounty on everyone's head due to Alcanthang's doing. Some people vent their anger on the internet and some people get even with the people that wronged them. Thanks for making this so much fun everyone!Votes:Hoyazo - 4Turtle - 1VeryJosie - 1Hoyazo is the next player voted off Donkey Island.Team Fish is not looking so hot, having only 5 players left compared to the 7 Donkeys still in the game. The Fish really need to step up if they don't want to be extra short handed when the tribes merge. 2 more team events left.

So, even though I had survived another week, the team #'s were not looking too good. A couple days later I got this email from VJ"

Hi Boaty,

Merge is almost here. After Wednesday we won't have the numbers and we'll get picked off one at a time if we stay as we are. Are you ready to make a move? We can secretly align with 2 Donk members - we'll be 4 strong....they'll make sure it's us that don't get voted off and in the end - we'll protect them. Are you interested?

I plan on honoring my alliance with you regardless. It was my first alliance and I'm keeping it. But this can be a good opportunity for us.

You, me, JamyHawk and Jordan (high on poker). Obv Goat, Kat, and Heff know nothing of this and it has to be kept that way, as the plan is for them to get screwed by Jordan and Jamy before it happens to them.

Are you in?

Please say yes! We don't have alot of other options and you know they'll have made enemies and we really haven't. Perfect when it comes to voting at the end, if one of us is still in it then.

Reply with 3 letters: Y-E-S

Josie

Now whenever we start aligning w/members of the other team it makes me nervous, but at this point it seemed like the prudent thing to do. This was made even more clear when we lost the next event & voted Dawn off. We were down 7-4 heading into the last team event & things were looking bleak. We did manage to win the next event, but team donkey voted off Jordan (HighOnPoker), so that didn't really help either. We merged 4 team fish & 6 team donkeys. I get this email from VJ:

It's time to make a move and I hope you'll do this with me. We have 4 votes and Team Donk has 6. We can play russian roulette Sunday night and see who they decide to pick off or we can make a move.

I think we can get 2 members (still waiting for confirmation from one) to join forces with us. We'll be 6 strong against Goat's 4 votes. We vote either Goat or Heff out and pick team Donk off one at a time. This guarantees us down to the final 6.

Is it risky? Yes, but we have the possibility of getting it done Sunday night, we may not afterwards as we'll be depleted by one member fo sho. I think the smartest thing is to be proactive. We have to stick together as a team though.

I'm making you all the promise that I will stick with you guys and I intend to keep it. We can be final 4 and bring the defectors with us for final 6. Are you up for the move? Take out Goat?

We definitely have one member and I'm waiting on word from the other. Worst case, we're 5 against 5. This is the only time we'll be close to even. I say take a chance. Let me know what you think. I say it's all of us or nothing. If everyone doesn't wanna do it, I'm dropping it entirely and hope for the best Sunday night.

Think about it and let me know.

Josie

I said I was in & xkm did the same. Then we got this email from VJ"

Hello guys!

Great news! We have Muhctim with us 100% and as you know we also have JamyHawk. That makes us 6 strong so long as we vote as a team. Plan is to vote for Goat and if he has immunity Heff. If any of you wants to nominate someone else for the vote just let me know - I'm all ears. I'll vote for whoever you guys want, so long as it ain't us.

Lets kick some butt tonight.

Josie

Again, I was nervous, and Buddy always reads the votes in the most dramatic way. Here was his summary:

It was a dark day on Donkey Island. Even though JuliusGoat merged from the stronger of the two teams, he was ceremonially voted out last night. We continue to have shocking dismissals and some alliances seem to be unknown. Fun Fun Fun. Keep it up!

Katitude won immunity by running the deepest of all the contestants.

Votes:Julius Goat - 6Smboatdrinks - 3Numbbono - 1*

*someone may have not voted since there were already enough votes to kick off Goat. Normally votes go to the player who didn't vote but when that player has immunity votes automatically go to Numb.(new rule)

Peace outBuddy

Wow, on one hand this was terrific news as Team Donkey really did split. They could have just picked us 4 team fish off 1 by 1 til it was just the 6 of them left. On the other hand I did get 3 votes from the team donkey strongholds, so I couldn't rest too easy. The next email we got from VJ was:

Hi Guys!!! We did it! We now have the majority and we need to figure out who the next person is that we vote for.

See email below and tell me what you think.

I was hoping we could vote off Heff and JamyHawk would vote with us, but it seems from the email below that he's not really with us.

Should we vote Heff off next or JamyHawk? I can go either way so let me know what you guys think. Even without Jamy we are 4 plus our friend from Team Donk makes 5. 9 peeps left and we have 5 WITHOUT JAMY. We have the majority even without Jamy so long as we stay together.

So who do you think we should vote for? Heff? Jamy? Kat?

Thanks,

Josie

Then this one:

Okay boys, word on the street is that JamyHawk is targeting Team Fish tomorrow night. He's trying to rally Team Donk for this and he wants me to go along. He says either iaatg or xkm.

I remain resolute that our best chance is to stay together. We FINALLY have the numbers in our favor so let's keep it like that.

I am now thinking get rid of Jamy Wed night who is def back with Team Donk, even though Heff is more of a threat poker wise. Whichever, we have to remain together in our vote.

Jamy Hawk?

If we vote him out, we still have us 4 fish, plus a very nice ex team donk member. We'll still have 5.

Josie

At this point I started thinking about the end game. Who do we need to take out that has the best chance of winning it all. I like Kat, but thought she would win a popularity vote if she made it to the final 2. So I replied:

Hey guys,

After thinking about it today I thought Kat might be our best vote next, but I can go for any of the former Donks if we still have the #'s and stick with our plan. I think we rattled them with the Goat vote. Let's keep them on their heels!

Stay together!

Boat

VJ was down with it:

I agree with Boat. Let's vote off Kat - Jamy still doesn't get xkm or iaatg and he may just rethink his plan now that Kat's gone.

I vote Kat!

Then I get this email from Jammy:

You wont go tonight. Or anytime soon as long as I can help. I explained to VJ that with us 4 voting together, no one can overtake our votes. We can go all the way to final 4.

You only got votes Sunday because Goat knew you and VJ are in an alliance and wanted to break it up.

We are good now. Kat is guaranteed getting our votes on Sunday.

Jamyhawk

So kat was voted off next, but I still got 2 votes. Jamy was next, as he has well documented on his blog. HeffMike was next to go. We were down to 6, and our core of 4 team fish seemed to be strong. That quickly changed during the voting in the next event as you can see from Buddy's email:

Our vote ended in a TIE!!! Finally!VotesSmboatdrinks - 3BrainMc - 3

They will be playing a heads up match tomorrow night at 9pm EST. I'll announce the winner when we know more!Buddy

I already made a post after the heads up match, so no need to rehash it here. Let's just say I survived and advanced in true Survivor form. So we were down to our Final 5, our original team fish alliance + Muhctim. Since xkm and turtle had turned on us they were the obvious ones to vote next, so turtle was next to go. During the next event Muhctim won immunity, but instead of sticking w/me & VJ, he voted w/xkm for VJ. VJ won her heads up match vs xkm and we were down to the final 3!

This was the most critical tourney, as the winner got immunity & was thus automatically in the Final 2. I put a bounty of $11 on both VJ and Muhctim if someone knocked them out before I was out. Muchtim got knocked out by Jamy, so it was down to me & VJ to see who won immunity. Now obviously VJ and I had our alliance since the very beginning & had promised to take each other to the Final 2. But this game messes with your head & you don't know what players have "promised" each other. VJ ended up outlasting me, but she did stick with her promise, and original alliance, and took me to the final 2. I would have taken her too, both because I had promised, but also because I thought it gave me the best chance of winning!

Very Josie played the game extremely well, but I thought I was going to win the final vote. In playing the game I think Very Josie rubbed some people the wrong way, so I was hoping to capitalize on that in the final vote. As we know I lost 7-6, and in addition to Riggs not getting his vote in on time, the 2 votes Josie got instead of me that suprised me the most were Jamy and Muhctim. Now I believe it was Jamy who said afterward that he would have voted for me if VJ had run the longest in the last tourney & thus winning the 40%. I guess I can appreciate that in that he wanted to be sure neither of us got shut out of the prize money, but it's frustrating to know I would have been champion of Donkey Island Season 1, and won the 60% if I had gone out before VJ.

Regardless it was a great run & tons of fun. Thanks again to Goat & Buddy!

Saturday, April 09, 2011

For those of you that are results based, I outlasted VeryJosie in the Final Tourney winning 40% of the prize pool, but came in 2nd in the voting for ultimate champion, by the narrowest of margins 7-6. I had accomplished my original goal of getting to the final 2, and giving myself a decent chance of winning the popular vote.

I watched the 1st few seasons of Survivor, so I knew the jist of how the game is played. After the 16 players were announced and the teams divided we were ready to go!

The first thing I did was to send a personalized email to each member of my team:

Hey xxxx!

Glad to have you on my team. In addition to email you can reach me via AOL IM or Google Talk, "SmBoatDrinks" on both.

Good Luck!

Boat

Josie was the 1st to reply:

Hi Boat!

My aol im is veryjosie and my yahoo im is very.josie

I will definitely be in contact! This is going to be sooo much fun. Now remember, do not vote me off and I won't vote you off. You are the first one (and perhaps the last) to get this PRICELESS offer. :) And you can trust me.

See you tonight!

The only other team Fish member that replied before the 1st tourney was Dawn:

ok, cool! see ya tonight

After Hoy won immunity & Numb got voted out from Team Donkey after Event 1, I got this "personalized" email from Hoy. It felt like a long form letter he sent to each of team Fish after getting scared that the longest lasting member of the other team was just voted off :

Hi smboatdrinks.

Seeing what happened to Numb the other day after running the deepest of any of his teammates in the first Survivor Poker tournament got me doing some research, and what I found is that it looks like most members of Team Donkey had apparently already formed a "secret alliance" to all vote for Numb when their team had their first chance to vote someone out, and I'm sure they will be doing the same for their next several eliminations. I do not know if this has already happened for Team Fish -- I sincerely hope not -- and I was thinking that I would like to make a voting alliance with you. My two cents is that you and I are two of the best and most experienced blogger tournament players on our team -- with Jordan, Numb, Heff and Goat all on Team Donkey, we really lucked out there -- and thus have the best chance of helping our team not to be subject to an elimination vote by outlasting everyone from Team Donkey in one of our tournaments. Thus, it is far and away in my best interest for you to remain on the team and in the competition, at least during this first month here while we are in Team Play.

My proposal is simple. Along the lines of what the Team Donkey players have done to protect themselves from early elimination here, I would like to suggest that you and I agree not to vote for each other for elimination from our team at any point during the "Team Play" portion of Donkey Island. My idea is that for now, our alliance can stay in force just for "Team Play", and we can cross the bridge of what to do after Team Play is done if and when we get there (let's hope we both do).

Frankly, regardless of whether or not you agree to ally with me and not to vote for me for elimination, I am still going to not vote for you at all during Team Play because, as I said, I know it increases my chances of avoiding an elimination vote just by having you around and playing in these games. I would like to get your agreement on this voting alliance to help protect me as well. As I said, my plan is to keep this alliance in place only during Team Play for now, although of course I would be willing to discuss a further alliance for the Individual portion if we are both lucky enough to still be alive in this a month from now.

Are you willing to join this alliance and agree not to vote for each other at all for elimination from Donkey Island Poker during Team Play? Please let me know! I am in discussions with a few others on Team Fish as well and am trying to build a consensus for who to vote out if the need arises, just like Team Donkey did the other day.

Either way, best of luck in the Dank on Wednesday. I know you know how to win a tournament against the bloggers, and I am hopeful that you, me or someone else on our team will keep our streak alive of not having to be subjected to an elimination vote this week, but you know it is going to happen eventually. Hopefully with a little bit of forethought here we can at least agree to protect each other from elimination, at least here during the Team Play phase, when I am convinced it is in every player on our team's interests to keep the better blogger tournaments players around the hopes of avoiding another knockout vote. Hopefully you feel the same.

Thanks, let me know!Hoyazo

I replied:

Hey Hoy!

Sounds good to me.

Congrats on the 1st Victory & Thank You for saving our asses! Hopefully I can return the favor tomorrow.

Boat

Hoy replied:

Cool beans, I definitely think it's a good plan for us while we are teammates. i will continue to try to outlast in these things. hopefully it comes down to the two of us next time tomorrow night.

thanks! youre off my vote list permanently while we are teammates.

hoy

So Hoy was beginning to take a leadership role w/Team Fish, as you can tell w/our next couple tourneys we had to vote someone off:

Hey xkm, smboatdrinks, and Josie,

Hoy here. It sounds like the four of us on copy here are on board for a voting alliance in survivor poker, which is great beacause together I think we represent the four best chances of outlasitng the other guys' longest-lasting player in every one of these tournaments that we play, which is good for us as a team without a doubt.

The rules of the alliance are simple I think (let me know if I am missing anything):

1. None of us four will vote for any other of us four for elimination at any time during the Team Play portion of the game; and

2. We should probably decide together who to vote for, to make sure that the votes are not all split such that some combination of the players not in our alliance take out one of us with just two or three votes.

From previous conversations it sounds like a number of us were already going to vote for Riggs in the earlier tournament this week if we had to, and that is who I propose we vote for tonight. He did not show up for Goat's tournament at all and really hasn't blogged or been a part of the group for ages. Hopefully we can outlast and it doesn't come to that tonight, but I suggest we all vote for Riggs together here and make sure to protect ourselves.

Best of luck tonight, everyone! Long live the alliance!

Hoy

riggs is not here again for the mookie today btw. he is doing us no good by being on this team. al is not here either, he should be our next one out as needed as he will not play much in these things.

Hey guys.

Best of luck tonight in Donkey Island Event #3. I was out late at altantic city last night so am not sure how late i will make it today but i will do what i can for the team.

as far as tonight's vote goes, if somehow Team Fish ends up having to vote to eliminate someone again, i think al is the guy this week. he has only showed up for 1 of the 2 events, and he doesnt try very hard when he is in them in any event, so i dont think the team is getting much value from having him stay on. hopefully it does not come to a vote for us tonight, but if it does, al is my vote and hopefully you guys will join me in that.

best of luck in the donkey rebuy! remember, its not about how much you buy in for, its about finding a way to amass a big stack by the end of monkey hour!

hoy

So, after 3 events we were down to 13 players, and 6 team fish, losing Numb, Riggs, and Al.